by something he thought he glimpsed wiffiinr beyond-the dancing flames.
Now, as dawn insistently pressed upon the resistant darkness of the
mountains, Eric Leben ascended from stasis, groaned softly for a while,
then louder, and finally woke. He sat up on the edge of the bed. His
mouth was stale, he tasted ashes. His head was filled with pain. He
touched his broken pate. It was no worse, his skull was not coming
apart.
The meager glow of morning entered by two windows, and a small lamp was
on-not sufficient illumination to dispel all the shadows in the bedroom,
but enough to hurt his extremely sensitive eyes. Watery and hot, his
eyes had been less able to adapt to brightness since he had risen from
the cold steel gurney in the morgue, as if darkness were his natural
habitat now, as if he did not belong in a world subject either to sun or
to man-made light.
For a couple of minutes he concentrated on his breathing, for his rate
of respiration was irregular, now too slow and deep, now too fast and
shallow.
Taking a stethoscope from the nightstand, he listened to his heart as
well. It was beating fast enough to assure that he would not soon slip
back into a state of suspended animation, though it was unsettlingly
arrhythmic.
In addition to the stethoscope, he had brought other instruments with
which to monitor his progress. A sphygmomanometer for measuring his
blood pressure.
An ophthalmoscope which, in conjunction with a mirror, he could use to
study the condition of his retinas and the pupil response. He had a
notebook, too, in which he had intended to record his observations of
himself, for he was aware-sometimes only dimly aware but always
aware-that he was the first man to die and come back from beyond, that
he was making history, and that such a journal would be invaluable once
he had fully recovered.
Remember the mice, the mice.
He shook his head irritably, as if that sudden baffling thought were a
bothersome gnat buzzing around his face.
Remember the mice, the mice, He had not the slightest idea what it
meant, yet it was an annoyingly repetitive and peculiarly urgent thought
that had assailed him frequently last night. He vaguely suspected that
he did, in fact, know the meaning of the mice and that he was
suppressing the knowledge because it frightened him. However, when he
tried to focus on the subiect and force an understanding, he had no
success but became increasingly frustrated, agitated, and confused.
Returning the stethoscope to the nightstand, he did not pick up the
sphygmomanometer because he did not have the patience or the dexterity
required to roll up his shirt sleeve, bind the pressure cuff around his
arm, operate the bulb-type pump, and simultaneously hold the gauge so he
could read it. He had tried last night, and his clumsiness had finally
driven him into a rage. He did not pick up the ophthalmoscope, either,
for to examine his own eyes he would have to go into the bathroom and
use the mirror. He could not bear to see himself as he now appeared,
gray-faced, muddy-eyed, with a slackness in his facial muscles that made
him look…
half dead.
The pages of his small notebook were mostly blank, and now he did not
attempt to add further observations to his recovery journal. For one
thing, he had found that he was not capable of the intense and prolonged
concentration required to write either intelligibly or legibly.
Besides, the sight of his sloppily scrawled handwriting, which
previously had been precise and neat, was yet another thing that had the
power to excite a vicious rage in him.
Remember the mice, the mice bashing themselves against the walls of
their cages, chasing their tails, the mice, the mice…
Putting both hands to his head as if to physically suppress that
unwanted and mysterious thought, Eric Leben lurched out of bed, onto his
feet. He needed to piss, and he was hungry. Those were two good signs,
two indications that he was alive, at least more alive than dead, and he
took heart from those simple biological needs.